I am already semi-retired at age 60.5. (I work part-time at home.) I have an IRA that is mostly invested in stock and bond mutual funds at a discount broker. When I first started managing my IRA investments myself about a year ago, I invested in a moderate way, with 20-25% in bonds and the rest in stocks and stock mutual funds. About 20% of the total is in a 1000 index fund. I now feel that I should have more in fixed income since I expect to begin drawing the interest later this year. However, for the last year most of my stock funds have lost money, and I hate to sell them at a loss. Every time my stocks and stock funds start to go up, they go down even more in a few days - well before I have recovered my losses. These are all good funds, or were, so I have been biding my time, but I wonder - for how long?

When to sell is always a tough question. Personally, I would make some judgement of when these funds are likely to recover and then decide if you can afford to wait. That can depend. If they are heavily invested in technology stocks, it sounds like recovery may be at least a year away. If they are broadly invested, recovery in the second half of this year seems possible.

The market does whatever is necessary to confound the greatest number of investors. When most folks have given up and sold, that's the bottom. The usual thing is that it is a good time to buy stocks when the Fed starts lowering interest rates, and in the year after a big correction. You are under some pressure in that your time frame is a little shorter than it should be for you to be that heavily in stocks, but if you won't need the money for a year yet you will probably do better to wait. Best wishes, Chris

Last July, I re-evaluated the mutual funds in my 403b account and made several changes. All of these funds, including the S&P index fund have seen major declines. Personally, I am going to hold on to the funds until the market as a whole starts to come back, then I will evalute the funds again to see if that's where I want to be.

If you are adding more funds to your plan, then put them into bond funds or money market funds. The question you must ask yourself is can you wait 6 to 18 months to see your stock funds come back?

You aren't the only person second guessing yourself. Eighteen months ago, if you weren't invested in stocks you felt like an idiot, now its the other way around. Hold on to them if you can, they will come back.